"Westerners, Europeans and Americans have always gone between two extremes about China, one is of great admiration, hope, and it's all wonderful and terrific, or the opposite - China is a great danger," Hans van de Ven, deputy vice Chancellor of University of Cambridge and chaired visiting professor at Peking University, said in an interview with China Daily during the Beijing Forum.

Van de Ven, said in order to find a more balanced way of thinking and talking about China one practical step that can and should be done now is to intensify relations between Chinese universities and their European and Western counterparts.

"Teaching is important in universities, but what universities really do is to get people together from very different backgrounds and that is where you learn a lot, and that is life-transforming," van de Ven said.